Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 20
He tries to imitate as closely as possible the animal he is representing.
Who acts: animal · What happens: try, imitate, represent · To what, where: animal
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (animal), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 tries | nsubj |
| 2 | tries | try | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | to | to | PART | _ | 4 imitate | mark |
| 4 | imitate | imitate | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 tries | xcomp |
| 5 | as | as | ADV | _ | 6 closely | advmod |
| 6 | closely | closely | ADV | _ | 4 imitate | advmod |
| 7 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 8 possible | mark |
| 8 | possible | possible | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 closely | advcl |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 animal | det |
| 10 | animal | animal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 imitate | obj |
| 11 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 representing | nsubj |
| 12 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 representing | aux |
| 13 | representing | represent | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 10 animal | acl:relcl |
| 14 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 tries | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | try | present | animal | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | imitate not said to happen | to-infinitive | animal not said here | the animal | closely property | vn patent-101 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent animal=Theme | |||
| 3 | represent | present · progressive | animal | the animal not said here | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot animal=Theme |
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.
Text: «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
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